'A Mechanical Ballet' Domestic Space as a Stage - The Living Room

“A Mechanical Ballet” *1 Domestic Space as a Stage - The Living Room Gabrielle Eglen Tutor: Zaynab Dena Ziari Shalmani HTS3 Submission, Intermediate Unit 10 Term 1 - December 2018

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* Note: This is a reference to a description of the work of Eileen Gray, not to the Fernand Léger film, “Ballet Mécanique”

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“His living room is a box in the theatre of the world.” (Walter Benjamin) 2

In the painting La Loge (The Theatre Box), Pierre-August Renoir depicts two individuals on “display” in a box at the theatre. The theatre box is a “social stage” 3 for the public display of “status and relationships”. In the image the physical space of the box is framed, with the woman placing her hand on the edge, the threshold. The two figures are seated, with the elegantly dressed woman sat to the foreground. The contained space sets up a series of angles or perhaps axis’ of view, of the gazes of the individual and of the projected gaze of the viewer. There is a focus on the individuals whose knowing gazes are elsewhere, the edge of space and its separation is revealed by the curtain. The space is therefore constructed for the display of relationships, the stage of the theatrical performance is non-present, the specific conditions perform a role.

The definition of the boundary, the orientation, the seat.

In the quote of Walter Benjamin, the living room is described as such a box. The subject of this essay is to question and understand the staging of space this quote suggests, the living room is taken to construct an alternative reading of the domestic, through the furnishing. The interior in the context of the quote is understood as a space of “illusion”, it is conditional upon the ‘self ’ and the presentation of the ‘self ’ in relation to the ‘other’, furthermore through “privacy” and the “arrangement” 4 of. Relationships are thus intrinsic to the arrangement of the space, the living room becomes the set. Does the furniture perform through the architecture, or the architecture through the furniture?

To take this reading of the theatricalisation of the interior the etymology of the living room must be considered, to view the living room as a stage is to understand the function of the living room. Here function is accompanied by the term ‘vision’. The living rooms of the Grand Elizabethan homes were purely a space to receive, with both a formal and ceremonial role. In the nineteenth century, a specialisation of the space developed into a fixity of terms such as the sitting room and the morning room. Today, the concept and emergence of leisure is pertinent. However, ‘receipt’ and ‘display’ are still manifest. The meaning of function can be seen to undergo a shift in relation to “arrangement”, space has a constant fluidity of narrative. The meaning shifts according to the furnishings defined.

“To start with, however, all rooms are alike, more or less”. 5

The furniture performs in place of the term, or perhaps always did.

“Furniture as Architecture” The theatrics of the room (generalised in this instance) involve performance, the definition of performance is a contested concept.

The following quote of Richard Bauman is considered in relation to architecture, for its presentation of performance through the relation of individuals and its acknowledgment of the self defining the pre-existing. “Performance is always performance for someone, some audience that recognises and validates it as a performance even when, as is occasionally the case, that audience is the self.” 6 It is this “consciousness of doubleness” and the comparison “with a potential, an ideal” that indicates “action” to provide the

2

Benjamin, W. 1999. The arcades project. US: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp.19.

3

https://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/what-on/exhibitions-displays/archive/renoir-at-the-theatre-looking-at-la-loge

4

Ibid. Benjamin, W.

5

Perec, G. 1997. The Apartment. Species of spaces and other pieces. UK: Penguin Books, pp. 28.

6

Carlson, M. 2003. Introduction. What is performance? Performance: A Critical Introduction. UK: Routledge, pp. 6.

narrative. 7 Narrative is embedded within space. “Furniture is not added to architecture; it is architecture”, 8 space recedes to a secondary role. Space holds the furnitures in correlation, as a constellation. “Space as sand”. 9 It moves and responds to shifts, these shifts being the sharp definition that the furnitures provide. The furniture conducts the performative aspect of the architecture. It advances to define “the nature of activities” 10, the narrative, the individual relations. The architecture, in these terms, is thus understood as an ensemble. Its meaning tied to its operation. The architecture an anticipation, the “advance and the retreat of the figure”.11 The Setting:

It must be noted that the focus of the essay is the interior of the domestic space that is the

living room, in the same way that the stage is presented as a controlled environment within

the limits of a wider space. The layers of the interior are therefore presented through the

furnitures and the envelope of the space itself. The exterior is acknowledged as singular, a

place of arrival from and a tool for proximity through the definition of the window as a

furniture. This ‘controlled environment’ is a fragment of an enclosure, in its

various, that is the home. “Space exists only when it is opened up, animated, invested with

rhythm and expanded by a correlation between objects and a transcendence of their

functions in this new structure.” 12 (Objects here being defined as the furnitures). This

“transcendence of function” is singular to the relationship it defines of the space.

I. The Set and the Piece (the term ‘set’ here should be noted as implying a grouping)

“confront”, “jostle”, “implicate”

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“A comfortable seat composed of horizontal tube-shaped rings upholstered with coated fabric and a nickel-plated

base.”

“In Roquebrune, the seat cushioning, consisting of transversal tube-shaped cushions, were upholstered with

coated fabric which was better adapted than leather to a seaside location.”

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15

7

Ibid. Carlson, M.

8

Adam, P. 2009. EILEEN GRAY HER LIFE AND WORK. UK: Thames and Hudson Ltd, pp. 103.

9

http://www.damnmagazine.net/2017/10/30/architecture-performance-love-affair/

10

Cieraad, I. 1999. Heidi de Mare: ‘Domesticity in Dispute’. At home : an anthropology of domestic space. USA: Syracuse University Press, pp. 17.

11

Leatherbarrow, D. 2009. Introduction. Architecture Oriented Otherwise. USA: Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 8.

Baudrillard, J. 1996. 1 Structures of Interior Design, The Modern Object Liberated in its Function. The system of objects. UK, USA: Verso, pp.

16.

12

13

Ibid. Pitiot, C. The Traditional Environment, pp. 13.

14

Ibid. Pitiot, C. Bibendum, pp. 19.

15

Ibid. Pitiot, C. Transat, pp. 30.

“The height of the tabletop is adjustable to be able to adapt it to the type of bedding and the morphology of the

person.” 16

Materiality, space, structure, proportion; comfort, function?

The interpretation of the above terms is understood as a ‘desire’, whose meaning is conditional. Each element of furnishing, such as the seat, is deployed to impose an intended organisation of the space. Its organisation is implicit with a narrative, an intention of a trace to be realised and thus performed.17 The furnitures of Eileen Gray have been described as a “prototype”. 18 They exist in their individual form as a piece, they are proposed as a set to be framed by a room. The furniture conducts the performative aspect of the architecture, its realisation. The architecture is the envelope, the frame. There is a specific relation between the frame and its contents, the proximity and the construction of the composition. As a set, each piece is either given a specific positioning as a fixed element or an ability to be moved within the space of the room and defined through use. The fixed furnitures are articulated with stencilled directions for their navigation. The notion of the “prototype” in this context sets up a relationship between ‘the set and the piece’. Each set is not directly applicable to each envelope. The intention is that some pieces are improved/adapted or even removed. This thus raises the question as to what point the architecture, the furnishing, is capable of the construction of the narrative: as a singular item or an entire set?

The transat chair is an example of an individual piece. In Gray’s E 1027 house, the chair is depicted in a photograph within the main room, the living room, and is also shown on the outdoor extension. Here the piece is part of the set, the set is notably not singular.

“… (W)ith the changing function came a changing vision of the room, which Eileen choreographed by simply moving pieces around.” 19

Plans of the ‘E 1027’ living room in ‘L’Architecture Vivante’ detail a reclining day bed as the ‘fixed’ furnishing. 20 The pieces are thus viewed in relation to this as the defining element within the envelope that is the room. The transat here becomes part of the set with the Bibendum chair, the presence of the two and their position along opposing diagonal axis’ implies the receipt of individuals, the space is performed by the occupation of the multiple. Certain images depict the transat as the singular element alongside the bed, in this instance the furnishing takes on the placement of need, conditioning the atmosphere as one of privacy. The individual in this case establishes the narrative of the room temporally, based on the needs dictated on an individual daily basis, the architectural set defines the activity. The alternate placement on the terrace shows the transat in relation to a small, low drum shaped side table. Here the space shifts, the use of the diagonal axis again imposes a directionality on the body. The individual is presented as occupying an ‘in-between’ space, between the living room and the frame of the view. The arrangement of the architecture performs the relationship, the performance is validated by the audience of the self. The narrative is created by the singular furnishing when in relation to a specific frame, that of the terrace to the sea.

In Gray’s ‘Tempe a Pailla’ house, the transat is part of a changing set dictated by being in a different context. Here the emphasis is on the individual, who validates the performance. The transat is similarly placed in relation to the outdoor table and the indoor daybed.

On the terrace, the transat sits at an angle to the view and the rectilinear table. On the table top sit a wine glass and a magazine. In the living room, the transat sits at a distance to the day bed with a rug separating the two, the chair faces the bed and is angled away from the adjacent window. The atmosphere is enacted. As a house for Gray designed by Gray, the intention and the consequences are tied through direct physical experience. The space is designed to anticipate shifts and positions, such as through the placement of the rug to define the chair as a distinct separation between the work and the leisure space. “The positions each element takes script the

16

Ibid. Pitiot, C. Breakfast table, pp.32.

17

Evans, R. 1997. Introduction. Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays. UK: Janet Evans and Architectural Association.

18

Adam, P. 2009. E. 1027. EILEEN GRAY HER LIFE AND WORK. UK: Thames and Hudson Ltd, PP. 107.

19

Ibid. Adam, P. A HOUSE FOR HERSELF: TEMPE A PAILLA, pp. 123.

20

Thomas, H. 2018. DRAWING ARCHITECTURE. UK: Phaidon, pp.83.

device’s performance” 21 , on the terrace the chair gains an appendix, the headrest. The furniture defines the atmosphere of the space in relation to leisure, correlated by the tabletop ‘decorative’ objects and the frame of the view. The space is one of flux, it shifts with the furnishing, appearing as traces of an action. The “conditions prompt, animate and conclude the performance”. 22 “Le Père” by Florian Zeller offers an alternate yet complimentary reading of the definition of the piece and the set in the staging (this time in a theatrical sense) of the living room. The premise of the play is of an elderly man suffering from dementia. The stage is composed predominantly of a living room, it is intended to appear as two houses and a hospital, the relation of the furnishings as a set transcribes this. The stage is presented as a reflection of the mind of ‘the father’, it is both “symbolic and naturalistic”. 23 The gradual removal of the furnishings leaves the stage in its ultimate form as a white cube. The performance, here in a literal sense, intertwines the piece with the narrative. The “affinities” (the relationships) are based on the specificities of the “echoes” (the furnishings). 24 The furnishing is tied to the relationships it performs. As the furnishings stage their disappearance, the relations between the individual characters break down. This theatrics of removal, within the staged frame, intentionally disrupts the fluidity of the narrative. The frame is constant, the furnishings are not. The furnishings must appear and register in the mind of the viewer as connected as a set, to enable the later break down through their separation as individual pieces. The narrative is understood through the construction of the frame, the removal of the furnishings places the term as a construct under question.

II. Connection and proximity “Positions” script “performance”

“Rinse off the tomatoes in the dropped sink, chop them on the inset board, throw them into the sauce simmering on the cook top and sample for

flavor, then sweep the refuse into the suspended garbage receptacle, grab a knife and fork from the flatware drawer and pull up a chair, but before

you do, program the mood lighting and put on some easy-listening music, then have a quick bite, phone in a message at the office and play the next

level of “Prince of Persia” on the laptop before the 11:00 News comes on - and before you retire for the night, set the VCR to tape a late-night

movie , adjust the climate-control, and be sure to set the motion detectors.” 25 (DS+R)

RoseLee Goldberg describes the work of Diller + Scofidio in “Dancing about Architecture”, she details an understanding of how “… a stage set might shape a dramatic text, its execution (the performers’ actions), and the audience’s understanding of the performance.”26 There is thus an established relationship of order; the set (the space) prompts a series of actions, which enables performance through their execution and this execution is validated as a performance between the self (the performer) and the other (the audience/viewer).

Language and space, the script and the architecture; a series of interplays. Architectural space is understood as theatrical space.

Proximity is implied as distinct to the inhabitant and their direct physical experience in relation to the ‘other’. The individual structures the receipt of the guest through the ‘proximity’ of the set (its furnishings) creating an architecture of scripted experience.

The architecture gains legibility through number.

21

Ibid. Leatherbarrow, D. Unscripted Performances, pp. 54.

22

Ibid. Leatherbarrow, D. Unscripted Performances, pp. 66.

23

http://theatr.cymru/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Pecyn_addysg_YTad_2018_s.pdf

Cieraad, I. 1999. Sophie Chevalier: ‘French Two Home Project’. At home : an anthropology of domestic space. USA: Syracuse University Press, pp. 88.

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25

Diller, E and Scofidio, R. 1994. Flesh architectural probes. USA: New York, pp. 248-249

Goldberg, R. Dancing about Architecture in: 2003. Scanning : the aberrant architectures of Diller + Scofidio. USA: Whitney Museum of American Art, pp. 49.

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If the architecture can be scripted, it seems necessary to define what is meant by the ‘scripting of space’. In the above context, of DS+R, the script triggers the space. The furnishing composes the space, it indicates a proposed physicality, a probing trace. The performance of the architecture is the validation required by execution. The Slow House by DS+R is presented through the above scripted paragraph, the space is a “fantasy” implicating it also as “an illusion”. This sense of “illusion” connects it to the Walter Benjamin quote, the interior is a space of illusion for the individual. In the Slow House each approach creates a new experience, the rhythm of interaction defines the space. The furnishings; the sink, the garbage receptacle, the flatware drawer, the chair etc. define movement. Their proximity and position moves beyond ‘a set of ’ to ‘a series of ’, to create a specific interaction. The visitor is “guided by a system of markers and maps” 27 - the furnishing, whether the picture window of the ‘Slow House’ or the angled chair of ‘the E 1027’. Through this reading, the term slow is the communication of an approach, an order.

In referencing the Slow House, the picture window and its role in relation to proximity cannot be ignored. “The window submitted itself to the very same outside it was meant to control”. The ‘set and the piece’ have previously been studied in relation to the window in the work of Eileen Gray, however the window itself can be seen as a moment that temporarily breaks the false proscenium of the set itself. In the space of the living room it becomes a frame within the frame, a disruption in the envelope of the room or perhaps a continuation of its atmosphere. Furnishings were historically placed in proximity to the window, in view of the street, the window appears as a marker to convey or even translate the furnishings it receives. “We display our living room “sets” before the proscenium of the picture window”.

“We wanted to examine ‘liveness’ in a culture that is almost entirely mediated,” Scofidio said. “But it is not liveness at the exclusion of the

mediated.” Could the live and the mediated be a reading of the domestic? The mediated/the live. Are the mediated surrounds performed live? Or

are the surrounds mediated through performance to become live?

III. The Chair and the couch “A sitting-room is a room in which there are armchairs and a couch” 28 (the term sitting room is understood as a question of terminology)

The furnishing is understood as composing the terminology of the space. However, the term composition implies an alternative output through its components. The piece can alter the set through the frame. The furnishing perhaps always composed the space.

The fixity of the term an aside, a confirmation. If the architecture defines the term, can a change in the individual pieces construct a different term?

“An atmosphere of plastic infinity” 29 - can atmosphere be interchangeable with architecture?

Returning to Eileen Gray’s ‘Tempe a Pailla’, the room is termed “a study/living room”. This fraction line is formalised through the furnishing, a living room for studying in or a study room for living in, does one study to live or live to study. ‘Furnishing’ references a specific piece, the desk, a ‘fixed’ piece in the set with the transat chair and the daybed. The desk sits behind a screen. It sits to one side of the space. It is built-in and can be folded back against the wall. To take a direct reading, the desk stages the definition of the role of the frame. The term ‘function’ here is not replaced with ‘vision’ but is rather intertwined, to change the function is to change the vision. It seems no coincidence, that when Georges Perec uses the term ‘sitting room’ he articulates this in relation to an architecture for sitting, a chair and a couch. The use of the fraction line as a separative element in the naming of Gray’s room implies either. It is 27

Ibid. Goldberg, RL.

28

Ibid. Perec, G. The Apartment, pp. 27.

29

Benton, T. 2017. E-1027 and the Drôle de Guerre. UK: AA Files 74, pp. 124.

a concerted play between the two, the definition as playful as the piece itself. The element determines each construct, without the desk can it exist as a study? Yet, the architecture is not removable, it remains as a marking, a thickness traced back to the frame.

Uncertainty creates balance. Improvisation is defined by anticipation. The “actuality exists in acts.” 30 Architecture is in constant flux.

The Blue Sitting Room

When talking of a “transformable” architecture and “poetic variation” and definition,31 the Maison de Verre is hard to ignore. The “Day Room” also described as the “Blue Sitting Room” contains four armchairs and a divan arranged around a rectilinear table. The carpet a bright blue.

“My grandmother would always sit on the divan facing her guests.” 32

“My Grandmother would receive guests here, and listen to music when on her own.”

“A retractable staircase leads up to her bedroom.”

The furnishing, the carpet, distinguishes the term of the space. On a further level, it gently composes the furnitures of the space as an architecture. “The house is a world within a world”. 33 (“His living room is a box in the theatre of the world.”) An acknowledgement of the frame, whether it be the space of the theatre, the envelope of the room or an entrance to the above room creates a hinge of ‘the public/the private’ through which the relationships are staged. The fragmentation of the space, as a literal set, allows for the piecing together of a narrative. The architecture lies between the definition of its terms.

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30

Ibid. Leatherbarrow, D. 2009. Unscripted Performances, pp. 43.

31

Frampton, K. 1969. Maison de Verre. UK: Perspecta, Vol. 12 (1969), pp. 79.

32

Vellay, D. 2007. Maison de Verre : Pierre Chareau's modernist masterwork. UK, Thames and Hudson, pp. 76.

33

Ibid. Frampton, K.

The Invisible Figure The performance of the architecture, as well as relating to an ‘ideal’ or ‘illusion’, is consistently intertwined with action. The narrative is performed through movement. The motion is a player, a force, a ‘liveness’. It is a detail.

“The tea trolley was cork-covered, so as not to wake the sleeper with any clinking.” 34

“A tiny hatch opens, to reveal cups of tea.” 35

The staging of the space is twofold. The individual stages the positioning of the furniture, yet the furniture also seems to stage its own positioning. The invisible figure. The piece moves toward you, it meets a need, it performs a social function, a role. The set is alive.

The relationship between individuals is also a relationship between the individual positioning of each furniture, “the virtual coordinates” 36 of the space. The movement between these ‘co-ordinates’ is occasionally one of silence, the definition of space is fleeting. “An advance and a retreat”, the appearance is immediate, it defines the beginning of the moment. Furniture becomes architecture through its performance of a set of spatial relations; the narrative remains fluid, the form a balance between fixity and flexibility. However to refer back to the painting’s construction of a frame, an in-between stage appears. One that allows for the staging of the intention and the scripting, the stage of recognition; of the observer, of a behaviour.

Architecture and furniture, furniture and architecture; interchangeable.

The furniture is a mediator, an architecture, a spatial-time piece.

34

Adam, P. 2009. EILEEN GRAY HER LIFE AND WORK. UK: Thames and Hudson Ltd, pp.102.

35

Vellay, D. 2007. Maison de Verre : Pierre Chareau's modernist masterwork. UK, Thames and Hudson, pp. 76.

36

Hale, J. 2017. Embodied Space. Merleau-Ponty for Architects. UK, Routledge, pp. 19.

Extended Bibliography Adam, P. 2009. EILEEN GRAY HER LIFE AND WORK. UK: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Baudrillard, J. 1996. The system of objects. UK, USA: Verso.

Benjamin, W. 1999. The arcades project. US: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Benton, T. 2017. E-1027 and the Drôle de Guerre. UK: AA Files 74, pp. 123-143.

Carlson, M. 2003. Performance: A Critical Introduction. UK: Routledge.

Cieraad, I. 1999. At home : an anthropology of domestic space. USA: Syracuse University Press.

Diller, E and Scofidio, R. 1994. Flesh architectural probes. USA: New York.

Evans, R. 1997. Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays. UK: Janet Evans and Architectural Association.

Frampton, K. 1969. Maison de Verre. UK: Perspecta, Vol. 12 (1969), pp. 77-109+111-128.

Goldberg, R. Dancing about Architecture in: 2003. Scanning : the aberrant architectures of Diller + Scofidio. USA: Whitney Museum of American Art. Guadalupe Galván, C. 2017. ARCHITECTURE AND PERFORMANCE: A LOVE AFFAIR AT THE HEART OF PERFORMA WITH ROSELEE GOLDBERG. Belgium, DAMN° Magazine. Available at: http://www.damnmagazine.net/ 2017/10/30/architecture-performance-love-affair/ [Accessed: November 12th, 2018].

Hale, J. 2017. Merleau-Ponty for Architects. UK, Routledge.

Leatherbarrow, D. 2009. Architecture Oriented Otherwise. USA: Princeton Architectural Press.

Maddocks, E. 2018. A WORD FROM THE SET AND COSTUME DESIGNER. Y TAD. UK: THEATR GENEDLAETHOL CYMRU. Available at: http://theatr.cymru/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Pecyn_addysg_YTad_2018_s.pdf [Accessed: November 22nd, 2018].

Perec, G. 1997. Species of spaces and other pieces. UK: Penguin Books.

Pitiot, C. 2017. Eileen Gray Une architecture de l’intime Intimate Architecture. France: Cap Moderne, Éditions HYX and Éditions du Centre Pompidou.

Teyssot, G. 2013. A TOPOLOGY OF EVERYDAY CONSTELLATIONS. USA: MIT Press.

Thomas, H. 2018. DRAWING ARCHITECTURE. UK: Phaidon.

Worsley, L. 2011. History of the Home. UK, BBC. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/history_of_home.shtml [Accessed: October 25th, 2018].

Vellay, D. 2007. Maison de Verre : Pierre Chareau's modernist masterwork. UK, Thames and Hudson.

2008. Renoir at the Theatre: Looking at La Loge. UK: The Courtauld Institute of Art. Available at: https://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/what-on/ exhibitions-displays/archive/renoir-at-the-theatre-looking-at-la-loge [Accessed: December 19th, 2018].